Written by
Anna Akhmatova |
Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
[1961]
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad.
One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name.
Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.
' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957.
Leningrad]
DEDICATION
Mountains fall before this grief,
A mighty river stops its flow,
But prison doors stay firmly bolted
Shutting off the convict burrows
And an anguish close to death.
Fresh winds softly blow for someone,
Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,
We are everywhere the same, listening
To the scrape and turn of hateful keys
And the heavy tread of marching soldiers.
Waking early, as if for early mass,
Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,
We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,
Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:
But hope still sings forever in the distance.
The verdict.
Immediately a flood of tears,
Followed by a total isolation,
As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,
Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,
But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.
Where are you, my unwilling friends,
Captives of my two satanic years?
What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?
What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?
I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.
[March 1940]
INTRODUCTION
[PRELUDE]
It happened like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release,
That Leningrad hung around its prisons
Like a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.
Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sang
Short songs of farewell
To the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,
As they, in regiments, walked along -
Stars of death stood over us
As innocent Russia squirmed
Under the blood-spattered boots and tyres
Of the black marias.
I
You were taken away at dawn.
I followed you
As one does when a corpse is being removed.
Children were crying in the darkened house.
A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God.
.
.
The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-cold
sweat
On your brow - I will never forget this; I will gather
To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy (1)
Inconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.
[1935.
Autumn.
Moscow]
II
Silent flows the river Don
A yellow moon looks quietly on
Swanking about, with cap askew
It sees through the window a shadow of you
Gravely ill, all alone
The moon sees a woman lying at home
Her son is in jail, her husband is dead
Say a prayer for her instead.
III
It isn't me, someone else is suffering.
I couldn't.
Not like this.
Everything that has happened,
Cover it with a black cloth,
Then let the torches be removed.
.
.
Night.
IV
Giggling, poking fun, everyone's darling,
The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo (2)
If only you could have foreseen
What life would do with you -
That you would stand, parcel in hand,
Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth in
line,
Burning the new year's ice
With your hot tears.
Back and forth the prison poplar sways
With not a sound - how many innocent
Blameless lives are being taken away.
.
.
[1938]
V
For seventeen months I have been screaming,
Calling you home.
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.
There are now only dusty flowers,
The chinking of the thurible,
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere
And, staring me in the face
And threatening me with swift annihilation,
An enormous star.
[1939]
VI
Weeks fly lightly by.
Even so,
I cannot understand what has arisen,
How, my son, into your prison
White nights stare so brilliantly.
Now once more they burn,
Eyes that focus like a hawk,
And, upon your cross, the talk
Is again of death.
[1939.
Spring]
VII
THE VERDICT
The word landed with a stony thud
Onto my still-beating breast.
Nevermind, I was prepared,
I will manage with the rest.
I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again.
.
.
But how.
The hot summer rustles
Like a carnival outside my window;
I have long had this premonition
Of a bright day and a deserted house.
[22 June 1939.
Summer.
Fontannyi Dom (4)]
VIII
TO DEATH
You will come anyway - so why not now?
I wait for you; things have become too hard.
I have turned out the lights and opened the door
For you, so simple and so wonderful.
Assume whatever shape you wish.
Burst in
Like a shell of noxious gas.
Creep up on me
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.
Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,
Or, with a simple tale prepared by you
(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me
glimpse
The house administrator's terrified white face.
I don't care anymore.
The river Yenisey
Swirls on.
The Pole star blazes.
The blue sparks of those much-loved eyes
Close over and cover the final horror.
[19 August 1939.
Fontannyi Dom]
IX
Madness with its wings
Has covered half my soul
It feeds me fiery wine
And lures me into the abyss.
That's when I understood
While listening to my alien delirium
That I must hand the victory
To it.
However much I nag
However much I beg
It will not let me take
One single thing away:
Not my son's frightening eyes -
A suffering set in stone,
Or prison visiting hours
Or days that end in storms
Nor the sweet coolness of a hand
The anxious shade of lime trees
Nor the light distant sound
Of final comforting words.
[14 May 1940.
Fontannyi Dom]
X
CRUCIFIXION
Weep not for me, mother.
I am alive in my grave.
1.
A choir of angels glorified the greatest hour,
The heavens melted into flames.
To his father he said, 'Why hast thou forsaken me!'
But to his mother, 'Weep not for me.
.
.
'
[1940.
Fontannyi Dom]
2.
Magdalena smote herself and wept,
The favourite disciple turned to stone,
But there, where the mother stood silent,
Not one person dared to look.
[1943.
Tashkent]
EPILOGUE
1.
I have learned how faces fall,
How terror can escape from lowered eyes,
How suffering can etch cruel pages
Of cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.
I know how dark or ash-blond strands of hair
Can suddenly turn white.
I've learned to recognise
The fading smiles upon submissive lips,
The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.
That's why I pray not for myself
But all of you who stood there with me
Through fiercest cold and scorching July heat
Under a towering, completely blind red wall.
2.
The hour has come to remember the dead.
I see you, I hear you, I feel you:
The one who resisted the long drag to the open window;
The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiar
soil beneath her feet;
The one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,
'I arrive here as if I've come home!'
I'd like to name you all by name, but the list
Has been removed and there is nowhere else to look.
So,
I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humble
words
I overheard you use.
Everywhere, forever and always,
I will never forget one single thing.
Even in new
grief.
Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouth
Through which one hundred million people scream;
That's how I wish them to remember me when I am dead
On the eve of my remembrance day.
If someone someday in this country
Decides to raise a memorial to me,
I give my consent to this festivity
But only on this condition - do not build it
By the sea where I was born,
I have severed my last ties with the sea;
Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stump
Where an inconsolable shadow looks for me;
Build it here where I stood for three hundred hours
And no-one slid open the bolt.
Listen, even in blissful death I fear
That I will forget the Black Marias,
Forget how hatefully the door slammed and an old woman
Howled like a wounded beast.
Let the thawing ice flow like tears
From my immovable bronze eyelids
And let the prison dove coo in the distance
While ships sail quietly along the river.
[March 1940.
Fontannyi Dom]
FOOTNOTES
1 An elite guard which rose up in rebellion
against Peter the Great in 1698.
Most were either
executed or exiled.
2 The imperial summer residence outside St
Petersburg where Ahmatova spent her early years.
3 A prison complex in central Leningrad near the
Finland Station, called The Crosses because of the
shape of two of the buildings.
4 The Leningrad house in which Ahmatova lived.
|
Written by
Allen Ginsberg |
When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St.
Patrick's Cathedral, St.
Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
America, Satchitananda Swami
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
sleep in his captain's bed.
"
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my
stomach
shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
& fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-
gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997
and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me.
"
"I forgot whether I was straight gay ***** or funny, was myself, tender
and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,
my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly.
on my prick,
tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged
chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a
pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
walk-up flat,
seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
again never wanted to.
.
.
"
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man.
" "He made
sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-
ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-
peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-
chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-
graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
historians come to witness the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive
February 22, 1997
|
Written by
Hilaire Belloc |
1 The golden-rod is yellow;
2 The corn is turning brown;
3 The trees in apple orchards
4 With fruit are bending down.
5 The gentian's bluest fringes
6 Are curling in the sun;
7 In dusty pods the milkweed
8 Its hidden silk has spun.
9 The sedges flaunt their harvest,
10 In every meadow nook;
11 And asters by the brook-side
12 Make asters in the brook,
13 From dewy lanes at morning
14 The grapes' sweet odors rise;
15 At noon the roads all flutter
16 With yellow butterflies.
17 By all these lovely tokens
18 September days are here,
19 With summer's best of weather,
20 And autumn's best of cheer.
21 But none of all this beauty
22 Which floods the earth and air
23 Is unto me the secret
24 Which makes September fair.
25 'T is a thing which I remember;
26 To name it thrills me yet:
27 One day of one September
28 I never can forget.
|
Written by
Annie Finch |
HLF, August 8, 1918—August 22, 1997
“Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
Is answered in the vortex of our grave
The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.
”
—Hart Crane, “Voyages”
“If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly
past the long edge of the last human shore,
there are deep windows the waves haven't opened,
where night is reflected through decades of glass.
There is the nursery, there is the nanny,
there are my father’s unreachable eyes
turned towards the window.
Is the child uneasy?
His is the death that is circling the stars.
In the deep room where candles burn soundlessly
and peace pours at last through the cells of our bodies,
three of us are watching, one of us is staring
with the wide gaze of a wild, wave-fed seal.
Incense and sage speak in smoke loud as waves,
and crickets sing sand towards the edge of the hourglass.
We wait outside time, while night collects courage
around us.
The vigil is wordless.
And you
watch the longest, move the farthest, besieged by your breath,
pulling into your body.
You stare towards your death,
head arched on the pillow, your left fingers curled.
Your mouth sucking gently, unmoved by these hours
and their vigil of salt spray, you show us how far
you are going, and how long the long minutes are,
while spiralling night watches over the room
and takes you, until you watch us in turn.
Lions speak their own language.
You are still breathing.
Here is release.
Here is your pillow,
cool like a handkerchief pressed in a pocket.
Here is your white tousled long growing hair.
Here is a kiss on your temple to hold you
safe through your solitude’s long steady war;
here, you can go.
We will stay with you,
keeping the silence we all came here for.
Night, take his left hand, turning the pages.
Spin with the windows and doors that he mended.
Spin with his answers, patient, impatient.
Spin with his dry independence, his arms
warmed by the needs of his family, his hands
flying under the wide, carved gold ring, and the pages
flying so his thought could fly.
His breath slows,
lending its edges out to the night.
Here is his open mouth.
Silence is here
like one more new question that he will not answer.
A leaf is his temple.
The dark is the prayer.
He has given his body; his hand lies above
the sheets in a symbol of wholeness, a curve
of thumb and forefinger, ringed with wide gold,
and the instant that empties his breath is a flame
faced with a sudden cathedral's new stone.
|
Written by
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St.
Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,
And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap—
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St.
Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:
"Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,
"On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem1;
"To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys—and St.
Nicholas too:
And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St.
Nicholas came with a bound:
He was dress'd all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he look'd like a peddler just opening his pack:
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow.
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly:
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh'd when I saw him in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill'd all the stockings; then turn'd with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
NOTES:
In the year 2000, Don Foster, an English professor at Vassar College
in Poughkeepsie, New York, used external and internal evidence to show
that Clement Clarke Moore could not have been the author of this poem,
but that it was probably the work of Livingston, and that Moore had
written another, and almost forgotten, Christmas piece, "Old
Santeclaus.
" Foster's analysis of this deception appears in his Author
Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (New York: Henry Holt, 2000):
221-75.
22.
1Later revised to "Donder and Blitzen" by Clement Clarke
Moore when he took credit for the poem in Poems (New York: Bartlett
and Welford, 1844).
Source:
http://www.
library.
utoronto.
ca/utel/rp/poems/livingston1.
html
|
Written by
Philip Levine |
A blue jay poses on a stake
meant to support an apple tree
newly planted.
A strong wind
on this clear cold morning
barely ruffles his tail feathers.
When he turns his attention
toward me, I face his eyes
without blinking.
A week ago
my wife called me to come see
this same bird chase a rat
into the thick leaves
of an orange tree.
We came as
close as we could and watched
the rat dig his way into an orange,
claws working meticulously.
Then he feasted, face deep
into the meal, and afterwards
washed himself in juice, paws
scrubbing soberly.
Surprised
by the whiteness of the belly,
how open it was and vulnerable,
I suggested I fetch my .
22.
She said, "Do you want to kill him?"
I didn't.
There are oranges
enough for him, the jays, and us,
across the fence in the yard
next door oranges rotting
on the ground.
There is power
in the name rat, a horror
that may be private.
When I
was a boy and heir to tales
of savagery, of sleeping men
and kids eaten half away before
they could wake, I came to know
that horror.
I was afraid
that left alive the animal
would invade my sleep, grown
immense now and powerful
with the need to eat flesh.
I was wrong.
Night after night
I wake from dreams of a city
like no other, the bright city
of beauty I thought I'd lost
when I lost my faith that one day
we would come into our lives.
The wind gusts and calms
shaking this miniature budding
apple tree that in three months
has taken to the hard clay
of our front yard.
In one hop
the jay turns his back on me,
dips as though about to drink
the air itself, and flies.
|
Written by
Anne Bradstreet |
Proem.
1.
1 Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie,
1.
2 Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky
1.
3 Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime,
1.
4 And so has vow'd, whilst there is world or time.
1.
5 So great's thy glory, and thine excellence,
1.
6 The sound thereof raps every human sense
1.
7 That men account it no impiety
1.
8 To say thou wert a fleshly Deity.
1.
9 Thousands bring off'rings (though out of date)
1.
10 Thy world of honours to accumulate.
1.
11 'Mongst hundred Hecatombs of roaring Verse,
1.
12 'Mine bleating stands before thy royal Hearse.
1.
13 Thou never didst, nor canst thou now disdain,
1.
14 T' accept the tribute of a loyal Brain.
1.
15 Thy clemency did yerst esteem as much
1.
16 The acclamations of the poor, as rich,
1.
17 Which makes me deem, my rudeness is no wrong,
1.
18 Though I resound thy greatness 'mongst the throng.
The Poem.
2.
1 No Ph{oe}nix Pen, nor Spenser's Poetry,
2.
2 No Speed's, nor Camden's learned History;
2.
3 Eliza's works, wars, praise, can e're compact,
2.
4 The World's the Theater where she did act.
2.
5 No memories, nor volumes can contain,
2.
6 The nine Olymp'ades of her happy reign,
2.
7 Who was so good, so just, so learn'd, so wise,
2.
8 From all the Kings on earth she won the prize.
2.
9 Nor say I more than truly is her due.
2.
10 Millions will testify that this is true.
2.
11 She hath wip'd off th' aspersion of her Sex,
2.
12 That women wisdom lack to play the Rex.
2.
13 Spain's Monarch sa's not so, not yet his Host:
2.
14 She taught them better manners to their cost.
2.
15 The Salic Law had not in force now been,
2.
16 If France had ever hop'd for such a Queen.
2.
17 But can you Doctors now this point dispute,
2.
18 She's argument enough to make you mute,
2.
19 Since first the Sun did run, his ne'er runn'd race,
2.
20 And earth had twice a year, a new old face;
2.
21 Since time was time, and man unmanly man,
2.
22 Come shew me such a Ph{oe}nix if you can.
2.
23 Was ever people better rul'd than hers?
2.
24 Was ever Land more happy, freed from stirs?
2.
25 Did ever wealth in England so abound?
2.
26 Her Victories in foreign Coasts resound?
2.
27 Ships more invincible than Spain's, her foe
2.
28 She rack't, she sack'd, she sunk his Armadoe.
2.
29 Her stately Troops advanc'd to Lisbon's wall,
2.
30 Don Anthony in's right for to install.
2.
31 She frankly help'd Franks' (brave) distressed King,
2.
32 The States united now her fame do sing.
2.
33 She their Protectrix was, they well do know,
2.
34 Unto our dread Virago, what they owe.
2.
35 Her Nobles sacrific'd their noble blood,
2.
36 Nor men, nor coin she shap'd, to do them good.
2.
37 The rude untamed Irish she did quell,
2.
38 And Tiron bound, before her picture fell.
2.
39 Had ever Prince such Counsellors as she?
2.
40 Her self Minerva caus'd them so to be.
2.
41 Such Soldiers, and such Captains never seen,
2.
42 As were the subjects of our (Pallas) Queen:
2.
43 Her Sea-men through all straits the world did round,
2.
44 Terra incognitæ might know her sound.
2.
45 Her Drake came laded home with Spanish gold,
2.
46 Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold.
2.
47 But time would fail me, so my wit would too,
2.
48 To tell of half she did, or she could do.
2.
49 Semiramis to her is but obscure;
2.
50 More infamy than fame she did procure.
2.
51 She plac'd her glory but on Babel's walls,
2.
52 World's wonder for a time, but yet it falls.
2.
53 Fierce Tomris (Cirus' Heads-man, Sythians' Queen)
2.
54 Had put her Harness off, had she but seen
2.
55 Our Amazon i' th' Camp at Tilbury,
2.
56 (Judging all valour, and all Majesty)
2.
57 Within that Princess to have residence,
2.
58 And prostrate yielded to her Excellence.
2.
59 Dido first Foundress of proud Carthage walls
2.
60 (Who living consummates her Funerals),
2.
61 A great Eliza, but compar'd with ours,
2.
62 How vanisheth her glory, wealth, and powers.
2.
63 Proud profuse Cleopatra, whose wrong name,
2.
64 Instead of glory, prov'd her Country's shame:
2.
65 Of her what worth in Story's to be seen,
2.
66 But that she was a rich Ægyptian Queen.
2.
67 Zenobia, potent Empress of the East,
2.
68 And of all these without compare the best
2.
69 (Whom none but great Aurelius could quell)
2.
70 Yet for our Queen is no fit parallel:
2.
71 She was a Ph{oe}nix Queen, so shall she be,
2.
72 Her ashes not reviv'd more Ph{oe}nix she.
2.
73 Her personal perfections, who would tell,
2.
74 Must dip his Pen i' th' Heliconian Well,
2.
75 Which I may not, my pride doth but aspire
2.
76 To read what others write and then admire.
2.
77 Now say, have women worth, or have they none?
2.
78 Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone?
2.
79 Nay Masculines, you have thus tax'd us long,
2.
80 But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
2.
81 Let such as say our sex is void of reason
2.
82 Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason.
2.
83 But happy England, which had such a Queen,
2.
84 O happy, happy, had those days still been,
2.
85 But happiness lies in a higher sphere.
2.
86 Then wonder not, Eliza moves not here.
2.
87 Full fraught with honour, riches, and with days,
2.
88 She set, she set, like Titan in his rays.
2.
89 No more shall rise or set such glorious Sun,
2.
90 Until the heaven's great revolution:
2.
91 If then new things, their old form must retain,
2.
92 Eliza shall rule Albian once again.
Her Epitaph.
3.
1 Here sleeps T H E Queen, this is the royal bed
3.
2 O' th' Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red,
3.
3 Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air,
3.
4 This Rose is withered, once so lovely fair:
3.
5 On neither tree did grow such Rose before,
3.
6 The greater was our gain, our loss the more.
Another.
4.
1 Here lies the pride of Queens, pattern of Kings:
4.
2 So blaze it fame, here's feathers for thy wings.
4.
3 Here lies the envy'd, yet unparallel'd Prince,
4.
4 Whose living virtues speak (though dead long since).
4.
5 If many worlds, as that fantastic framed,
4.
6 In every one, be her great glory famed
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
1
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!
2
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!
3
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
4
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!
5
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!
6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!
7
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!
8
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!
9
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
10
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!
11
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
12
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!
13
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!
14
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
15
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
16
Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!
17
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!
18
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
19
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!
20
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!
21
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!
22
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!
23
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!
24
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!
25
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!
26
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers.
|
Written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
.
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
.
The loud vociferations of the street
.
Become an undistinguishable roar.
.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
.
And leave my burden at this minster gate,
.
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
.
The tumult of the time disconsolate
.
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
.
While the eternal ages watch and wait.
II.
2.
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
.
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
.
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
.
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
.
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
.
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
.
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
.
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
.
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
.
What exultations trampling on despair,
.
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
.
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
.
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
.
This medi?val miracle of song!
III.
Written December 22, 1865.
3.
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
.
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
.
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
.
The congregation of the dead make room
.
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
.
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
.
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
.
From the confessionals I hear arise
.
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
.
And lamentations from the crypts below;
.
And then a voice celestial that begins
.
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
.
As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow.
"
IV.
Written May 5, 1867.
4.
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
.
She stands before thee, who so long ago
.
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
.
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
.
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
.
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
.
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
.
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
.
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
.
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
.
Lethe and Euno? -- the remembered dream
.
And the forgotten sorrow -- bring at last
.
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
V.
Written January 16, 1866.
5.
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
.
With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
.
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
.
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
.
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
.
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
.
And Beatrice again at Dante's side
.
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
.
And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
.
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
.
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
.
And the melodious bells among the spires
.
O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
.
Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
VI.
Written March 7, 1866.
6.
O star of morning and of liberty!
.
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
.
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
.
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
.
The voices of the city and the sea,
.
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
.
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
.
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
.
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
.
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
.
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
.
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
.
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
.
And many are amazed and many doubt.
|
Written by
John Dryden |
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly.
2
Though our best notes are treason to his fame
Join'd with the loud applause of public voice;
Since Heav'n, what praise we offer to his name,
Hath render'd too authentic by its choice;
3
Though in his praise no arts can liberal be,
Since they whose Muses have the highest flown
Add not to his immortal memory,
But do an act of friendship to their own;
4
Yet 'tis our duty and our interest too
Such monuments as we can build to raise,
Lest all the world prevent what we should do
And claim a title in him by their praise.
5
How shall I then begin, or where conclude
To draw a fame so truly circular?
For in a round what order can be shew'd,
Where all the parts so equal perfect are?
6
His grandeur he deriv'd from Heav'n alone,
For he was great ere fortune made him so,
And wars like mists that rise against the sun
Made him but greater seem, not greater grown.
7
No borrow'd bays his temples did adorn,
But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring.
Nor was his virtue poison'd soon as born
With the too early thoughts of being king.
8
Fortune (that easy mistress of the young
But to her ancient servant coy and hard)
Him at that age her favorites rank'd among
When she her best-lov'd Pompey did discard.
9
He, private, mark'd the faults of others' sway,
And set as sea-marks for himself to shun,
Not like rash monarchs who their youth betray
By acts their age too late would wish undone.
10
And yet dominion was not his design;
We owe that blessing not to him but Heaven,
Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join,
Rewards that less to him than us were given.
11
Our former chiefs like sticklers of the war
First sought t'inflame the parties, then to poise,
The quarrel lov'd, but did the cause abhor,
And did not strike to hurt but make a noise.
12
War, our consumption, was their gainfull trade;
We inward bled whilst they prolong'd our pain;
He fought to end our fighting and assay'd
To stanch the blood by breathing of the vein.
13
Swift and resistless through the land he pass'd
Like that bold Greek who did the east subdue,
And made to battles such heroic haste
As if on wings of victory he flew.
14
He fought secure of fortune as of fame,
Till by new maps the island might be shown,
Of conquests which he strew'd where'er he came
Thick as a galaxy with stars is sown.
15
His palms, though under weights they did not stand,
Still thriv'd; no winter could his laurels fade;
Heav'n in his portrait shew'd a workman's hand
And drew it perfect yet without a shade.
16
Peace was the prize of all his toils and care,
Which war had banish'd and did now restore;
Bologna's walls thus mounted in the air
To seat themselves more surely than before.
17
Her safety rescu'd Ireland to him owes,
And treacherous Scotland, to no int'rest true,
Yet bless'd that fate which did his arms dispose
Her land to civilize as to subdue.
18
Nor was he like those stars which only shine
When to pale mariners they storms portend;
He had his calmer influence, and his mien
Did love and majesty together blend.
19
'Tis true, his count'nance did imprint an awe,
And naturally all souls to his did bow,
As wands of divination downward draw
And points to beds where sov'reign gold doth grow.
20
When past all offerings to Feretrian Jove,
He Mars depos'd and arms to gowns made yield;
Successful councils did him soon approve
As fit for close intrigues as open field.
21
To suppliant Holland he vouchsaf'd a peace,
Our once bold rival in the British main,
Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease
And buy our friendship with her idol, gain.
22
Fame of th' asserted sea through Europe blown
Made France and Spain ambitious of his love;
Each knew that side must conquer he would own,
And for him fiercely as for empire strove.
23
No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'd
Than the light monsieur the grave don outweigh'd;
His fortune turn'd the scale where it was cast,
Though Indian mines were in the other laid.
24
When absent, yet we conquer'd in his right,
For though some meaner artist's skill were shown
In mingling colours, or in placing light,
Yet still the fair designment was his own.
25
For from all tempers he could service draw;
The worth of each with its alloy he knew,
And as the confidant of Nature saw
How she complexions did divide and brew.
26
Or he their single virtues did survey
By intuition in his own large breast,
Where all the rich ideas of them lay,
That were the rule and measure to the rest.
27
When such heroic virtue Heav'n sets out,
The stars like Commons sullenly obey,
Because it drains them when it comes about,
And therefore is a tax they seldom pay.
28
From this high spring our foreign conquests flow,
Which yet more glorious triumphs do portend,
Since their commencement to his arms they owe,
If springs as high as fountains may ascend.
29
He made us freemen of the continent
Whom Nature did like captives treat before,
To nobler preys the English lion sent,
And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.
30
That old unquestion'd pirate of the land,
Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard,
And trembling wish'd behind more Alps to stand,
Although an Alexander were here guard.
31
By his command we boldly cross'd the line
And bravely fought where southern stars arise,
We trac'd the far-fetch'd gold unto the mine
And that which brib'd our fathers made our prize.
32
Such was our prince; yet own'd a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show:
Thus poor mechanic arts in public move
Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.
33
Nor di'd he when his ebbing fame went less,
But when fresh laurels courted him to live;
He seem'd but to prevent some new success,
As if above what triumphs earth could give.
34
His latest victories still thickest came,
As near the center motion does increase,
Till he, press'd down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the vestal, under spoils decrease.
35
But first the ocean as a tribute sent
That giant prince of all her watery herd,
And th' isle when her protecting genius went
Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferr'd.
36
No civil broils have since his death arose,
But faction now by habit does obey,
And wars have that respect for his repose,
As winds for halycons when they breed at sea.
37
His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;
His name a great example stands to show
How strangely high endeavours may be blest,
Where piety and valour jointly go.
|